HP Launches Music Service In Europe

Hewlett-Packard said today it is launching a subscription-based music service in Europe in partnership with Omnifone.

The service called MusicStation will be pre-loaded on 16 HP models across 10 European countries. The service will provide access to songs from all four major music labels and independent labels.

MusicStation will be available on new HP PCs in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. Users will pay around $14 a month for access to MusicStation. They can trial the service for free for 14 days, and keep 10 songs each month.
"The HP rollout sees MusicStation Desktop preinstalled on multiple HP PCs, available in 7 languages with each territory featuring an individually tailored music catalogue from Omnifone's roster of over 6.5 million tracks," said Rob Lewis, Chief Executive Officer of Omnifone.

The new service is fully licensed by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music and Warner Music International.

"With its huge scale and user base, HP's 10 country introduction of Omnifone's MusicStation unlimited music service for the PC will help encourage legitimate access to digital music content from Universal Music and all the other major and independent labels," said Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, Universal Music Group International.